Rethinking Educational Research on School Disengagement Through Students’ Voices
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Abstract
Several factors may lead to school disengagement and dropout. Understanding this process can help schools identify and work with young people at risk of disengaging, before this comes entrenched. This paper reports the stages and initial results of a study that used vocational school students as co-researchers to investigate the phenomenon of engagement and disengagement at a vocational school. Following the premises that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching and schooling, we have built a research design in which all data were collected, analysed and coded by students who were engaged in a 3-stage process of analysis: selecting, contextualising and codifying. First findings of this research show that by analysing data, students identified and critically discussed problems, naming ways to change the situation, thus showing that when they are asked to participate in their own learning process, change can happen and schools can locally work to reduce dropouts.
Keywords: School dropout; disengagement; students as co-researchers; students voice; photo voice.
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